


A different kind

by Kat2107



Series: Not Really Scandalous [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Don't Ask, M/M, Vasquez isn't sure if he wanted to know either, and the puns, and the well meaning bed partners, just roll with the punches, or: accidents happen, part 2 of my failed attempts at plain porn, you don't wanna know - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 12:26:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11380158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat2107/pseuds/Kat2107
Summary: The day he discovers the secret, Vasquez expects to do anything but that.He expects nothing in that day, including the bullet to his side.Or the sex. Especially not the sex.





	A different kind

**Author's Note:**

> This one's been fighting me hard.  
> I wrote about 5k of a different draft and completely deleted it except for a few sentences and started over and it seemed to go like this for most of the fic.  
> But here it is.  
> Because people were asking ;)

The day he discovers the secret, Vasquez expects to do anything but that.

He expects nothing in that day, including the bullet to his side.

They rode out in the morning to find a bandit hideout in the mountains with a few warrants in Sam’s pockets, but before they even had a chance to come close, by sheer, dumb luck, their advance guard got a drop on Vasquez.

It cost the guard his life, clean shot to the heart but the damage had been done.

If needed, Vasquez could still have fought with the others, stayed back and shot at everything that moved but there would have been no getting away for him, let alone stay in the saddle until they managed to find wherever they needed to go. So Sam had sent him back to base.

He wanted to send Red with him but with Goodnight, Billy and Joshua still having to stay behind for the more strenuous expeditions and an unknown number of bandits up ahead they had no one to spare.

Horne suggested turning around but Vasquez agreed with Sam that they couldn’t risk warning the gang.

Base, in this case, means an abandoned farm, a nice big house and barn whose owners had fled to the nearby town and along with their peers had hired The Seven. That still means 3 hours by horse, blood slowly soaking through the bandage in his side and trickling down his leg. Pain, too.

Staying in the saddle by sheer force of stubborn pride and spite.

When the farmhouse finally comes into view… it’s not so much weakness that has him slide down Sombra’s back with a relieved sob, it’s everything and maybe the thought that Joshua is there and Joshua will kick up an unholy fuss about him and then be as inappropriate as possible.

He normally wouldn’t but this once, Vasquez leaves Sombra in the paddock by the barn, still saddled up and stumbles towards the house.

He crosses over from behind, a die-hard habit, one of the things that had kept him alive on the run and nobody had yet presented a convincing argument to walk up the front door in broad daylight until absolutely necessary.

If he had, he might not have heard the sounds until he was already inside. As it stands, the deep moans echo through the calm evening air like…

Vasquez’s hand freezes on the door handle.

Then he hears it again, a deep, masculine moan from the house where the bedroom is. Not like someone in pain. This sounds unmistakably like…

“Stop teasing Billy and fuck me, Jesus wept, would you please get it o….”  Faraday’s voice breaks on another moan, the rustle of cloth on skin, skin on skin.

Vasquez's hand drops away and he staggers backward. He turns in the last second to find support against the house’s wall and lets himself slide down.

The pain is a welcome distraction.

Goodnight’s laughter cuts over both of their voices and all in all… that is not surprising. They all know that Goodnight and Billy are a couple. None of them have had a problem with it, not even Horne.

Joshua, though… Joshua casually drapes his arm along the back of Vasquez’s chair during dinners and looks at him sometimes like he is the only important person in the world. Joshua teases him and bumps their shoulders together and grins sheepishly when Vasquez does the same. Joshua laughs with him. Leans into him and tends to drop his head onto Vasquez's shoulder when he falls asleep while they’re still sitting around the fire.

Joshua who seems to check out Vasquez first thing when they come back from a job and is ready to raise hell the moment he finds anything amiss.

Joshua who groans Billy’s name now, broken by moans that belong to the oldest sound of humanity.

Night falls fast out here and winter is still not that far north. The cold creeps into Vasquez's bones with every minute he sits on the damp wooden planks and listens, soaks up every sound from inside, every whisper of … the things he would maybe have liked to do with Faraday, given a chance. Everything he hadn’t dared ask. But then, it looks like the man has already found it elsewhere.

A faint thought of just running crosses Vasquez’s mind and is immediately squashed. That isn’t who he is. He ran once to save his life but he has never run from a fight. Not, when there remained something to maybe win and be it his wounded pride.

Vasquez closes his eyes against the sounds, adjusting the position of his legs when it becomes uncomfortably clear that he is not unaffected by the pounding of flesh on flesh, by the diffuse murmur of Goodnight’s voice, praise, he thinks.

Faraday comes first, chokes on words that Vasquez can’t quite make out over the painful pounding in his ears and side and over Billy’s loud groan. The first sound he makes. The only sign that even he can lose control.

Only a few moment later, Goodnight follows them.

Vasquez shivers in the darkness, the bandage around his side sticks to his skin with tacky blood by now but he can’t bring himself to get up, can’t get himself to want to get up and admit…

The door opens and he stares in the barrel of a revolver before he becomes aware that he made a sound. Billy’s black eyes widen in the dark and he curses in a language Vasquez can’t quite identify but is sure isn’t English.

“Faraday!”

The next thing Vasquez sees is a half naked Joshua storming outside. He wants to protest and tell them to just leave him alone and suffer in silence, to not bother and under no circumstances to pick him up but both Billy and Faraday are already on him, there hands on him, gentle as they lift him to his feet, Joshua’s arm warm and strong around his shoulders as he half guides, half carries Vasquez inside.

 

“What happened?” Goodnight is on them in an instant, bedroom door flung open to direct them inside. He ignores Vasquez’s protests that that isn’t the place he wants to be right now, with the wide double bed still warm from their bodies.

Joshua goes a step further. “Shut up, you twat. You need a bed.”

Billy has stormed off to somewhere else and leaves it to Joshua to lower Vasquez onto the warm sheets. His fingers make quick work of the vest and gun belt, broad palms wrapping around Vasquez neck and shoulder to help ease the way as Goodnight tugs up Vasquez shirt and reveals the bloody bandage around his middle.

The wound is not bad or dangerous in itself. A long graze curving around his side that clipped the skin and took a chunk out of him. It didn’t even bleed as much as it could have, despite 3 hours on a horse. Would’ve been fine except an additional hour on a freezing porch had done his body no favors and Goody notes as much.

“Joshua, I think you’ll have to warm him with your body while Billy takes care of the wound.”

Vasquez wants to protest again and once more is robbed of the opportunity when Faraday climbs over him onto the bed and drapes himself behind the Mexican to pull Vasquez’s slimmer body against his broad, scarred chest. And warm. His warm, living chest half draped across Vasquez freezing body, surrounding him with delicious heat.

Vasquez shivers into the embrace, too eager to leech as much of that heat to protest any of this, including the overwhelming smell of fresh sweat and sex that clings to Joshua’s skin. It’s a good smell on him. Goes well with the healthy glow he has about him to soften his worried expression.

Vasquez would keep him like this, exactly like this. He wanted him like this. Still does. Good for Goodnight and Billy that they were faster, more daring. Less hung up on inexperience and upbringing.

As greedy as it is of them.

As selfish as it is of Vasquez to accept the gentle motions of Faraday’s fingers carding through his hair and the chiding worry in his voice.

“Why didn’t you come in, you moron?”

Vasquez only notices that he closed his eyes when he has to crack them open again to cast Faraday a disbelieving glance at the question.

“You were… busy,” he answers, incredulity thick in his voice

“We were..? Oh! Oh...”

Faraday blushes red like a tomato, his gaze shooting to Goodnight then back to Vasquez. He chews a moment on his next words, licking his lips to buy a few more precious seconds before he speaks.

“You are more important than this, Vasquez. You will always be more important than this,” he says with his voice brimming with conviction.

His face is so earnest, all of his normal humor fled, that Vasquez instantly believes him. And doesn’t that bring a whole nother level of trouble?

“You shouldn’t dismiss your lovers like this, guero,” Vasquez rasps and despite himself turns his head into Faraday’s broad shoulder, utterly selfishly stealing a few more touches for himself.

He is too cold to really feel the pain at the moment though he suspects it will come roaring back with a vengeance once they peel back the cover Red had hastily slapped on it, the herbs designed to stave off infections.

Faraday’s fingers still in his hair and yes, there goes the sweet touch, perhaps the only one Vasquez will ever have from him.

In the background, Billy clears his throat. “I think, we need to sort a small misconception here, Vasquez…” He sets a bowl with water down on the bedside table and drops a cloth next to it from the sound of it. “Goodnight is my lover, my partner. Faraday is just… “

And immediately, Vasquez feels his hackles rise, everything in him getting ready to defend his friend. No matter what, because this he will never stand for. But then Billy closes with a low laugh. “...a pleasant addition. But he belongs to someone else, entirely.”

“That is a talk that needs to happen another time I’m afraid. First, we need to make sure friend Vasquez will be alright despite our… ill-timed misunderstandings.” Goodnight cuts the bandage open and that alone does not hurt yet.

Vasquez has no time to ask who Faraday belongs to, what else he missed.

“Shhhh, I got you, Vasquez. Just relax. We’ll take care of you.”

Vasquez remembers having said something along those lines and all iterations between as he held Joshua down for his bandages to be changed. For one moment he’s irritated by it but as soon as Billy starts peeling back the cloth sticking to the wound, he is nothing but grateful.

 

***

 

He expects pain to be the first thing to register as he wakes, not a deep, sonorous snore right next to his ear coupled with delicious warmth along his body and only then the pain that radiates from his side. Still much less severe than expected.

Turning his head, Vasquez finds his best friend’s sleeping face only centimeter from his own, mushed against his shoulder and of course - of course - drooling onto the sheets. He couldn’t stop the wave of fondness and longing rising in his heart to save his life, the stupid smile following right on its heels. None of that changed through the discovery that said best friends is thoroughly enjoying to be fucked by Billy Rocks and Goodnight Robicheaux.

Slowly raising his fingers, Vasquez brushes down Joshua’s bedhead and lets his smile turn wistful, just a little sad.

He can’t even blame them. It’s not like he staked a claim or told anybody about it. It’s not like he hadn’t carried that little flame in his heart in secret for months, carefully nurtured it through Faraday’s fight for survival and recuperation, through his tears and scream and the inevitable weeks of annoyance when all the gambler could do was lie in bed and be bored. Through nights spent talking and his first steps.

Through all the nights Vasquez had lain awake and turned the words in his mind to find the courage to say them. Or just do it. Kiss him. See what comes out of it.

But he hadn’t.

Vasquez retracts his hand and lets him sleep. Carefully untangles himself from the embrace of Faraday’s arms and limps out of the bedroom.

He remembers hazily that someone had undressed him to his underthings before tucking him in but by then he had already been mostly asleep and barely able to understand what was happening around him.

Now he fishes his pants from the lone chair in the room and awkwardly pulls them on without bending his waist too much.

If he’s honest, he still doesn’t understand. He may know but understanding is far, far…

 

“Vasquez!” Goodnight voice greets him with honest cheer as he steps out into living area, at his elbow a steaming mug of coffee and on the table in front of him a well-worn book. Inside, the house looks anything but abandoned. The wear and tear of a cold winter has not yet reached the interior with the windows intact and the doors unopened until the Seven had reclaimed it. Someone had taken care to wipe the layers of dust from the shelves and tables and clean away the clutter and now it seems almost cozy.

Goodnight kicks out one of the chairs in an invitation to sit and when Vasquez hesitates, he closes the book and drops it onto the tabletop with an audible thump.

“Please sit, my friend. You trying to stand upright worries me.” He plasters a bright smile on his face that he normally reserves for people he plans to scam out of their money. “And we need to talk.”

Ah yes…

“I am not going to tell anybody, Goodnight,” Vasquez says, tired again already.

“For Christ’s sake, Vasquez, sit!” Goodnight’s voice turns sharp and that gets Vasquez to relent, not a threat but the urgency below the words.

So he, bar any other options, makes a face and sits. “Where’s Billy?”

“Fetching water. We figure you might want some coffee and Joshua, too, once he wakes.” Goodnight smiles, though what about Vasquez can’t imagine. “Which might take another few hours. He watched over you almost til sunrise, until we were reasonably sure you wouldn’t develop a fever.”

“Oh…” Looking over his shoulder towards the bedroom door, Vasquez re-evaluates Faraday’s presence in the bed, though not by much. He isn’t truly surprised, he finds. Despite everything, that is what he would’ve expected. What he came here expecting.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Goodnight inquires gently when he turns back.

“About what?” he asks automatically and it earns him a skeptical eyebrow.

“Whatever you want. What you found out last night, perhaps. Or maybe how it relates to your feelings for Joshua.”

Vasquez ignores the back door creaking in favor of staring at the tabletop in front of him, too stymied by Goodnight’s frankness.

“You are not subtle,” Billy snarks, as he shoulders his way inside. “Neither of you.”

Vasquez’s head shoots up as he stares at Billy. “That’s not really something I have a say in, is it? Whatever he does with you and whatever you do, as long as it’s his own free will…”

Goodnight answers with a sad little shake of his head and a sip from his mug.

“Lord, save me from considerate lovers…”

The buckets Billy was holding hit the floor with an accusing thud to highlight Goodnight’s words.

“Vasquez…” Billy rubs the back of his gloved hand over his forehead, white shirt billowing loosely around his shoulders that still haven’t reached their former width yet, though it is a minor miracle that he can use both of his arms again with the bullet holes he received.

“I have taken Joshua Faraday on his knees, on his back, in my mouth. I have heard him beg and laugh and moan…”

When Vasquez sputters in response to that, Goodnight silently pushes his coffee cup over with one of his knowing little smirks and leans back.

Billy, on the other hand, doesn’t care. “...but the only name, he ever says when he loses control…” His lips curl into one of his rare smiles on a dramatic pause, flint-hard eyes locked onto Vasquez with something akin to mild disappointment. “...is yours.”

Vasquez can feel the heat rise in his cheeks and grabs for Goodnight’s mug, desperate to find something to do that is not staring at Billy, mouth agape and mute horror flooding his mind.

“I don’t know what it is with the two of you and what is wrong that you do not manage to solve this but trust me, I have had you in my bed so many times now that I start to feel you belong there. Which you don’t. You belong in someone else’s bed, so please pull your head out of the sand long enough to see.”

“I…” Vasquez never ran from a fight, he merely ponders if this qualifies as a fight or if he can get up and walk out. Now.

Goodnight, with his infuriating little smile with all its fondness and understanding, doesn’t help.

“Well,” he adds to his partner’s words. “There you have it.”

“But why…?”

“Why are we taking him to our bed then?” Goodnight hums softly until Billy comes over and places both hands on his lover’s shoulders, stroking along the expensive fabric of the shirt, fingers digging in for a light massage.

“He had wrong ideas. We corrected them,” Billy supplies.

“Misconceptions really,” Goodnight adds, “about how love between men is supposed to feel. We felt compelled to show him otherwise. Better.”

Billy sighs and brushes his fingers through Goodnight graying hair, a little wistful as he eyes Vasquez with a look that speaks volumes although in a language that Vasquez doesn’t quite understand.

“And then he wanted to learn. So we taught him.”

“How to…,” Vasquez lets the words run out with an indistinct gesture of his hand.

“...properly sleep with a man,” Goodnight finishes for him, a small smile lurking in the corner of his mouth.

“Or two,” Vasquez says and releases a slow breath.

“Or two,” Billy agrees with a smirk that remains far from mean.

“Don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing,” Goodnight says and watches as Billy stands to walk over to the stove. Between the four of them he, surprisingly, is the best cook and since Rose Creek has made food duty his own. Something, Vasquez is glad about because his own abilities in that regard stop at tortillas, beans, and the occasional egg.

“Do you?” Billy asks sharply from where he just put up a new can with coffee and heavy cast iron pan that belongs to the house and eyes Vasquez up and down.

“Billy…” Goodnight turns from his chair and shakes his head at his partner.

“Just making sure he knows what he’s doing,” Billy says and it almost sounds like a faint threat. “He’s been hu…”

“Billy!”

Vasquez doesn’t think he ever heard Goodnight take a sharp tone with his partner, but here he is, snapping at Billy to cut him off and something doesn’t pan out at all here.

Before Vasquez can follow that train of thought, the door to the bedroom opens and a sleep-mussed Faraday bumps into the doorway. No shirt, his pants half open, his gaze uncannily zeroes in on Vasquez. The late morning light wraps golden around his freckle colored shoulders and sets the faint reddish tones in his hair alight while it shades every scar, every dip in heavy muscles until it has turned him into a statue of perfection.

“There you are,” he murmurs and the worry on his face smooths out, almost into a smile that Vasquez is too dumbfounded to return. “Someone’s comin’. Guess it’s Sam. Is there coffee?”

None of those words are rightly said to Vasquez yet Faraday’s gaze never moves off his face.

“You ok?” he asks like this is what he really means instead of all the things he said because someone had to.  

Vasquez understands the question, past the fact that he still has a pretty nasty wound. They have been dancing around it for weeks, months even, neither daring enough to risk ask it.

Now, everything has changed. Except for the answer.

“Sí.” It’s been the same since the moment when McCann’s bullet had hit Faraday’s side and in a blinding moment of terror, Vasquez understood how big a hole Faraday would leave in this world. And then he had gone and made it worse.

Something in Faraday’s face shifts as understanding dawns with a quick glance to Billy. Whatever their answer is, he only sees it reflected on Faraday’s face and in his soft. “Oh…”

They do not wait for Vasquez to turn and instead do sensible things, like check whether it’s indeed Sam and the others who are riding up to the house. Important things. Things Vasquez should be doing as well.

Make sure his gun is loaded and on hand. Get into a better defensive position.

Faraday still leans against the door frame, his hands easily hanging by his side and the charade of ease were almost believable if his fingers weren’t drumming against his thigh in minuscule movements.

Here they are, still staring at each other while Sam’s voice calls out outside, commanding as always.

Vasquez's mouth curls up as he finishes Goodnight’s coffee.

“Yes, I am ok.”

 

***

 

“It wasn’t that big of a problem in the end. They weren’t expecting us and we were expecting something worse than what we got.” While he speaks, Sam rips apart a slice of bread that Billy had miraculously procured for them and dunks the pieces into his bowl of soup.

The other two nod in agreement, Jack mirroring Sam’s actions one for one while Red silently shovels the soup into his mouth, foregoing the bread completely.

It’s always a bit of a gamble with what the Comanche will eat although he is not picky per se. It took a few weeks of traveling together to understand; until Red had agreed to take over cooking duty somewhere between towns. It had been...different. Roasted meat and herbs that they didn’t know, berries and strange, flavorful fragrances that had felt wrong on the tongue at first but after the strangeness had passed had turned into something they looked forward to - the inevitable joke from Faraday notwithstanding.

Their youngest was a damn fine cook on the road.

What he never made and never ate was anything even remotely resembling mush with gravy, or as Red himself called it: dog food or bread. The former by preference, the latter because he tended to react with violent stomach cramps whenever he tried.

Knowing this, getting Red to eat wasn’t all that difficult. Although he could go hungry for days, given the chance, he ate like Vasquez.

Who, at the moment, contends himself with some scrambled eggs and a piece of toasted bread.

Sam has already put his foot down and decided that Vasquez will stay in the comfort and safety of the farm house and he’d rather take Billy and even Goodnight with him on their next trip than to risk a fever or further injury.

Vasquez pondered telling him that he has ridden farther with worse injuries since the day he earned his bounty but Faraday caught his eye over his plate of food and ...smiled. A slow curl of his lips, full of intent and mischief glittering in his eyes and suddenly Vasquez’s breath had caught in his throat and he acquiesced with only a token protest.

“We won’t be gone long. From what we gathered the other camps are little more than outposts to have something to sleep on their “tours”.

“It makes sense, though,” Faraday cuts in from Vasquez left. “they couldn’t terrorize as big of an area with only one camp.”

“Yes.” Sam fishes a piece of broth drenched bread from his bowl and chews thoughtfully, completely oblivious to Red’s suppressed shudder. “I’m somewhat disappointed in myself to not have thought of it.”

Jack reaches over and pats his shoulder with a gentle huff. “We got the worst of them. This is nothing but righteous clean-up. And an easy task to help our friends back into the saddle.”

Before Faraday can protest, Jack raises an admonishing finger in his direction. “Not you. Where they almost died and broke bones you had to test the Lord thrice over.”

Goodnight, all smooth Southern charm and importance, adds as if it weren’t a cheap excuse: “And someone needs to stay with Vasquez in case his body decides that fever is still in order.”

Vasquez meets Faraday’s eyes in a sideways glance and finds _intent_ burning in the blue depths, not at all curbed by his weak attempt at a long suffering sigh.

“Well, someone’s gotta…”

“Gracías, guero,” Vasquez snorts and swipes up the last of his egg with the bread. Even Billy is laughing.

  

***

 

“What am I even doing?” Faraday’s voice pitches low in the barn, whispering with the soft “frrrt” of the leather straps of Billy’s saddle sliding through the hoops as he tightens them.

Billy looks up from his saddle bag with a low hum.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Thanks,” Faraday grates, but his lips quirk up a little.

“I never had this problem,” he admits silently, his fingers stilling on the leather until Billy actually shoves him aside - gently as few would believe he can be.

“Maybe it never meant something?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Billy bumps his shoulder against Faraday’s and smirks. “About time that it does.”

His gentle teasing eases the lump in Faraday’s chest until his shoulders sag down and he can take a deep breath with a low laugh.

“You think?” he asks.

“I think you’ll do great. You’re a skilled lover and you love that man, Joshua.” Billy takes his horse’s reins and pats Faraday’s shoulder. “As does he. Stop worrying. He doesn’t want perfection or he wouldn’t be staring at you like he does.”

This time, Faraday rolls his eyes. “Yeah, thanks, Billy. Y’are awfully motivating.”

Goodnight greets his partner at the door to the barn, quizzical look on his face as he looks past him and to Joshua.

“Billy’s been trying to be helpful. Nevermind. You two be careful. No gettin’ shot or anything.”

“We’ll do our best, Joshua. You be…” Goodnight breaks off as Billy gently pokes him in the ribs and nudges him to turn around.

Faraday doesn’t need to see to know who just limped out of the house. Billy and Goodnight fail completely in the subtlety department.

As proven when Goodnight turns his head towards Faraday and tips his hat with a grin, murmuring in a low pitch that carries only between them: “Don’t try to be subtle.”

 

Sure enough, the moment the two worrywarts retreat to join Sam and the others, Vasquez wanders around the corner and into the barn. He moves well, all things considered, though his gait is less easy than Faraday’s used to. But he still sidles up to the gambler like he always has, with the natural expectation to be welcome in a space he claimed as his own.

Like nothing changed.

But it did.

Vasquez knows.

Faraday turns his gaze away from the softness and the smoldering embers in Vasquez eyes to the meddling midwives that just mount their horses. He could be angry, and waste the time they have pissed off, or he can use whatever favour Billy and Goodnight thought they were doing him.

Possibly did.

At his side, Vasquez shifts his balance to bump their shoulders together.

"Two days, guero. I hope you have cards. Or this is going to be two long days."

Oh, Please…

Faraday turns his head and taps on the breast pocket of his vest. What kind of question is that even... oh.

Vasquez sucks his lower lip between his teeth as if he just realizes something and along his scruff covered cheeks creeps the shadow of a blush.

Oh.

"Yeah," Faraday says, his gaze glued to the fine shadow of embarrassment that dusts the cheek of one of the most deadly men he knows and he grins as he throws his arm around his best friend’s shoulder. "We'll find something to do."

Goodbyes happen with the minimal fuss that people like them prefer, wise words of the elder and responsible from Sam and nothing but a knowing smirk from Goodnight.

It’s not like they won’t see each other in two days time after all, dustier and road weary but with fresh bounties in their pockets.

 

“So…,” Faraday drawls as the others vanish down the road. “Will you bite me if I kiss you?”

Vasquez draws a sharp breath and opens his mouth to answer but he doesn’t get that chance. Winning’s never about playing fair after all, it’s about taking the risk to get what you want.

Vasquez’s lips taste of his disgusting cigars, the bitter tang of coffee and surprise. Bristles scratch over Faraday’s skin as he pulls away to gasp a shallow breath.

“Don’t bite,” Faraday grins at the soft clack of Vasquez’s teeth before their lips clash again and this time he takes the vaquero’s mouth with his tongue and enough hunger to bowl over a lesser man. Vasquez, though, is not lesser. His surprise fades quickly and his fingers grab Faraday’s shirt, responding with his very own ferocity.

Faraday takes this as permission to push Vasquez backwards in slow, careful steps, guiding him with sure hands on his hips. There is a few bundles of straw and hay stacked up in the corner of the barn, a little mouldy but still good enough, and Faraday would love to claim intent there, of kissing Vasquez here where a soft bedding was so readily available. In truth, nobody can prove the contrary so he will.

It feels planned and like knowing what he does as he swiftly pulls up Vasquez’s loose fitting shirt and drops his own on top in lieu of a blanket and then wraps an arm around the other man’s shoulder to let him sink backwards into the soft mound without straining his wound.

Sometimes he _is_ a proper genius.

“Ok like that?’ he asks as his lips let go from his lover’s - not quite yet but soon to be - chasing Vasquez’s voice as his fingers chase the soft shudders Vasquez gives whenever Faraday trails them up his torso. So receptive. So easy and beautiful. So beautiful.

He’d known that but know he _knows._

Vasquez answer is an unexpectedly short clipped “Sí.” though he doesn’t seem to mind Faraday’s lips and teeth and his teasing tongue on his neck.

It’s only when Faraday notices how the touch of Vasquez’s hands is missing that he looks up from licking his way across the man’s collarbone to find them digging into the fabric of his shirt and Vasquez’s eyes squeezed shut on shallow, panting breaths.

“You sure you ok, darling? Or am I overwhelming you?” he means it as a jest, he does, that’s why the answer takes him so much by surprise.

Vasquez only ever bites his lips when he is nervous. Nobody knows that because Vasquez doesn’t get nervous.

“Can you give me… a breath?” Vasquez’s head falls back, baring the column of his throat as he gasps for air although he isn’t winded at all. Just…

Faraday’s eyes catch on Vasquez’s hands again, where they fist into the fabric of the shirts.

Maybe he should’ve tried subtle first.

_You’ll do well._

And now look at him, they haven’t even started yet and already Faraday fucked up.

He drops onto the hay next to Vasquez, making sure to face him the whole time and to not let go of him, ending up on his side with his hand curled around Vasquez’s jaw.

So close… one glimpse down Vasquez’s body confirms that well… the obvious bulge in his pants at least wasn’t the problem.

Then what is?

“Too fast,” is the answer he gets in a small voice and boy, is that unhelpful.

“Too fast because it’s over too soon and you are so desperate for my body that you’d…. Nevermind.” Faraday takes one look at the exasperated stare and crosses that possibility off.

“Too fast because you …” how to best word this without accusing someone of being a hapless virgin. Which, he is sure, Vasquez isn’t. Mostly.

“Because I.” Vasquez rolls his eyes. “Never mind me, guero. I can keep up.”

And that is it, isn’t it? What Billy said.

“Oh but darling, minding you is all I wanna do…” He bends closer and whispers their lips together again, mingling their breaths in the most unchaste chaste way. “I mind a lot that you will say that me, this, was so fucking worth it. Best two days of your life. Frequent repeats welcome. I mind you a lot, Vasquez. And if that’s the first time you’ll be with a man, I fucking make it my business to be on me best behaviour, alright darling?”

Vasquez closes his eyes with a sigh that sounds close to giving up before he turns his face with the flaming red cheeks towards Faraday.

“It’s not the first time,” he states and adds the clarification right away. “I’ve been with men when I worked on the trails. You were alone with the other vaqueros for weeks, so…” he shrugs. “Hands. Mouth, once or twice, I know.”

But Faraday knows so much more. Heck, Vasquez has heard him do much more.

“But not…?”

Vasquez huffs a sigh and rolls his eyes at Faraday. It still looks incredibly fond. Like someone took Faraday’s ill-fitting feelings and stuffed them into this slighty rangy Mexican and it sits so well on him.

“...that. No.”

_You’ll do well._

Sure, because Faraday always does well when he is terrified.

Well, he does. He excels under stress and he never loses when the stakes are high enough.

“Alright!” He pushes to his feet as dignified as possible and extends a hand to his injured partner. “We’re not gonna do this anywhere but a proper bed. And on the way you can think on if you want slower or just draw the boundary in familiar territory.”

 _See?_ He thinks at Billy. _Easy._

 

***

 

They hit the bedroom with much more restraint than Vasquez expected from Faraday. Not exactly careful or chaste - they step through the door and Vasquez finds himself tangled in Faraday’s kisses and the touch of his hands that skim over his body with easy moves like it were his god-given right no matter how light the touches- but still, Faraday lowers him onto the bed with much more care and attention than Vasquez expects.

It’s endearing and it’s annoying in equal measures.

“I am not breaking,” he grates as Faraday tugs the bandages aside to check the wound.

“Sam will kill me if something happens to you.” A faint note of something swings in Faraday’s voice, neither guilt nor shame, just.. Some undercurrent as if he isn’t exactly saying what he means.

"Sam was here half an hour ago, guero."

"Shut up and let me."

He lets him, though not easily.

“The wound is two days old. I didn’t die then, either.”

Faraday flinches at the reminder of what exactly happened two days ago and Vasquez sighs softly at the reminder of that guilt. “Guero… it’s fine. I’m fine. I heal fast.”

“You were half frozen!” Faraday snaps, fingers brushing along the stitched up wound, oversensitive flesh pulling tight at the tickling sensation. It’s not exactly pleasant.

“But I didn’t. I’m fine. It was my own stupid…” Jealousy, his mind supplies. “... that kept me from knocking. I know you would’ve put me first the moment I made a sound. I was just stupid.”

Faraday snorts and hangs his head with a half aborted laugh. “I thought you were gonna say that I would’ve come the moment you knocked. Jesus wept, that’s too wrong.”

Vasquez can’t stop the laughter bubbling up any more than he can stop his hand burying into Faraday’s hair to tug him to face Vasquez.

“You did though. Come, I mean,” he adds and is rewarded with Joshua Faraday blushing, something that is exceedingly rare, despite the man’s fair complexion. “I heard you.”

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that…” Faraday even sounds embarrassed but that is not what Vasquez is trying to say. The thought alone of the sounds he made, the desperate need in his gasps and moans, wanton and unashamed… Vasquez only too clearly remembers his own reaction. His body does, too, judging from the way his pants grow tight.

“I liked the sounds,” he admits and tightens his fingers in Faraday’s hair. “I hated that you made them without me. Though he treated you right.”

That sparks a faint shadow of a grin on Faraday’s face, deeper than just the memory of a thryst. “Yeah, he did. Always does.” His finger deftly tighten and re-tie the bandage around Vasquez’s middle before he looks up with a softness that steals Vasquez’s breath. “I wanna treat _you_ right.”

“I’m right here, guero. I wanna hear you make those sounds because of me.”

Tugging Faraday up for a kiss is easy now that he comes willingly, slots their lips together like they were meant to be, tongues dancing lazily around each other, learning the other’s moves yet, enticing, tempting to do more.

Vasquez will maybe not admit it to Faraday’s face but lying down _does_ make it easier.

“Whatever you want, Vas. I can ride you, if you like. If you don’t dare yet…”

Vasquez needs a moment to decipher the picture behind the words. Faraday on him, moving over him, around him, taking Vasquez deep… the thought alone draws forth a low moan ,squashed immediately by the reality of faint pain in Vasquez’s side.

He wouldn’t be able to keep up there. If he had Faraday this close, this intimately … he would want to give him more than to just not move because flexing his stomach muscles hurt too much. He would need to take him, to hold him down and take him apart and…

Faraday catches his gasp with his lips and grins. “You like that thought.”

“Sí. But not today.”

Vasquez pushes Faraday back the small distance until he can look him in the eye. “Today you show me what they showed you, guero.”

“How much did those damn tattletales even tell you,” Faraday grouses but moves down Vasquez’s body at the same time, hands skimming over his chest and torso, familiar in a way from more innocent times and activities. Vasquez can’t help but wonder if any instance of washing the other’s back had ever been innocent in hindsight.  

“I am here, am I not?” Vasquez murmurs when Faraday’s lips leave a hot trail down his sternum, Faraday’s hands deftly open his pants. “Think, they said the right things.”

The only answer is a noncommittal hum and the sudden spark when Faraday closes lips and teeth around one of Vasquez’s nipples, followed by low laughter at the involuntary jerk he gives.

His big hands skims gently up Vasquez side, avoiding the wound safely. “So sensitive.”

He looks up with sparkling eyes and grins, only to dance his tongue around the nipple once more.

“I can make you come like this. With my tongue and my hands, if you like. Make it good without, you know…?”

Vasquez wonders whether Goodnight and Billy know this side of  Faraday, the considerate friend, the one he shows only when he has nobody to impress or bedazzle. Vasquez saw a lot of him in Rose Creek, crying at night when the pain got too bad and he pondered if being dead wasn’t better. He sometimes asked what Vasquez thought and always acquiesced to his answer. ‘I’d miss you if you weren’t here.’

Vasquez’s fingers curl into Faraday’s thick hair, hold him there for a moment, a promise another time. Not today.

“Please take me, Joshua.” When Faraday still does’t react, even his fingers still on the hem of Vasquez’s pants he gently tugs and the thick, auburn strands. “I prefer privacy. Who knows when we’ll have that again.”

Faraday tilts his head into the grip of the hand in his hair and smiles. His thumb starts to caress little circles over Vasquez belly.

“You tell me when I go too fast or you don’t like anything, yes? You say stop, I stop. No questions asked.”

“Joshua…”

“Say yes.”

“Yes, Joshua.”

 

Vasquez finds himself naked faster than he could protest if he wanted to and hands on his body, caressing him in long languid strokes, like a spooked mare, while lips brush every uncovered bit of his torso, bite frequently too, once Faraday notes how he shudders into every nip.

He takes his time, wandering lower and lower, first above the bandage and then below.

“I have waited for this,” he defends himself when VAsquez complains, his tongue painting lazy trails down Vasquez’s hips to his thigh. “I intent to savor it. Every single inch.”

Gun-roughened hands curl around VAsquez hip, tilt them until Faraday has unfettered access to the soft skin where Vasquez thigh connects to his groin. “I want to keep it,” Faraday smiles and pulls a bit of that sensitive skin between his teeth, sucking until it hurts and Vasquez knows he will find a mark there later.

He wants to complain about possessive bastards but all words are cut off when a broad, strong hand wraps around his cock, from tip to bottom, gathering drips of Vasquez’s arousal as he goes in a leisurely slide down and up again.

The pain spikes, with another suck of Faraday’s mouth on the mark and seemlessly runs into another move of his hand that fans Vasquez’s slow simmering arousal to very real flames.

“Guero….”

“Yes… like this, darling. Just like this.” The gambler looks up from where he kneels between Vasquez knees, his cock heavy and dark on his thighs. Unashamed and lewd to the core. His hands slows, caresses Vasquez cock in easy strokes as Faraday bend down and picks a tin from the floor. He lifts Vasquez’s leg over his shoulder and rolls the tin over his thigh with a low hiss at the cold of the metal.

“Because that shit’s always cold. And we don’t want you uncomfortable darling, do we?” Faraday’s smirk does nothing to make this position feel any less exposed, spread open with Vasquez right knee fallen easily to the side to alleviate any stress on his injured side and the other lifted high with his foot resting on Faraday’s shoulder. And of course Faraday’s hand, with his thumb drawing sparking circles over the head of Vasquez cock only to let it go and wander deeper, curl carefully around his balls and roll them in his hands for a few second until Vasquez has to bite his lips to contain the moan.

It’s not… he had that before. Men in secret meetings out under the sky when they drove cattle together and the hunger took over. Quick, secret meeting on lake shores and under trees, hands down pants and sometimes a mouth fumbling in the dark, more or less skilled. Working women bought in small towns for a night to let off steam, always knowing that it was a business transaction.

Nothing like this, the meticulous attention to each of his shivers and little moans, someone intimately learning every reaction to what he does.

“You’re breathtaking, Vasquez,” Faraday murmurs, voice all gravely and dark as his fingers wander deep and intently rub on a spot behind Vasquez balls that make him shudder without his own volition. “Damn beautiful, is what you are. Better than I ever could imagine.”

Vasquez laughs at that and reaches out to what little he can reach of Faraday. “Feels better, too,” he says and brushes his fingertips over Faraday’s knees.

“Yeah? I hope so.” Doubt creeps into Faraday’s eyes as his gaze finds the bandage again. “Might be easier on the wound if you were on your side, though. Or your belly. Less strain.”

He takes the warmed up tin and throws it on the bed, already moving as if he wanted to make it so when Vasquez hand stops him.

“No, guero. I wanna see you.”

Faraday stills for a doubtful moment and takes his hands away to open the lid of the tin and scoop out a generous amount of salve, then you puts the lid back on and dumps it on the floor.

“Whatever you say, darling,” he murmurs as he bends forward slowly, bending Vasquez leg back until he has the man under him truly and undeniably exposed and also can catch his lips for a kiss.

“Just tell me when it’s too much.”

Vasquez wants to shoot back a sharp answer and finds himself tense instead at the first touch of a broad finger between the cheeks of his ass. A curious touch, circling slowly, faint pressure that doesn’t demand he yield just yet.

“Easy, sweetheart. Just easy and relaxed.”

Vasquez grabs the back of Faraday’s neck and reels him in for a kiss. Catches his breath and the low laugh and gives him his surprised hiss in turn when the finger breaches him. He couldn’t move if he wanted to in this position but that’s fine, he doesn’t need to. He can trust Joshua and his eyes that study every twitch on Vasquez face, his finger that slowly pushes deeper and deeper, slick with the salve, moving slowly back and then push deep again.

A strange pressure, slow caressing nerves to life. A tingling sensation that spreads through Vasquez groin with every gentle stroke of that finger.

“Ok like this?” Faraday murmurs into the kiss and smiles at Vasquez nod.

“Think you can take more?”

“Yeah, do it.”

It is on pure instinct that Vasquez twitches away when the pressure increases, the strangeness becoming too much for one moment, but Faraday’s lips are there, brushing little kisses and whispered love words over his lips and jaw and neck, holding him as effectively as his arms do and then he curls his fingers and all the strangeness is forgotten and replaced by fire, warmth that spreads through Vasquez’s belly and cries for more.

“Perfect,” Faraday whispers at his ear and Vasquez drinks in the darkness in his low voice. “You’re doing so good. You like that, hm?”

No need to answer. Vasquez strains into the hold, Faraday has on him and moans softly into the intimate space between as the same move happens again, a slow curl, deep pressure and something hot curls tight low in his belly.

Faraday shifts lightly above him, positioning Vasquez leg around his waist to give him more room to move but his fingers never stop their ministrations, scissoring slowly, pressing deep to touch him again and again with the same sure aim that Faraday shows in a fire fight.

“More…,” Vasquez moans and is rewarded with more. More pressure, faster, slow still, just a little more, not enough. Just…

He tries to lift his hips into the pressure from Faraday’s fingers but finds himself securely pinned with just a small shift of his lover’s massive body.

“No, no, you relax. Let me take care of you. Nice and easy, my beautiful,” Faraday croons and dissolves into a low laugh when Vasquez growls at him.

“You’re injured, Vas. Let me do the work. I promise, I’ll take good care of you. Such good care.” His lips hit Vasquez’s warm and firm. “Just show me what you like.”

The fingers slide into him again, thick and slick, more again, filling him up and then he curls them and it’s like…

“Just like that.” Faraday’s hand slips around the back of Vasquez’s neck, holding him still for a kiss, all tongue and teeth and pressure and his hips pressing hotly against Vasquez’s thigh, Faraday leaking erecting a burning line against his skin. Possessive. So possessive, the idiot.

He will pay him back for that one day. But not today.

Instead he grinds his ass on Faraday’s hand the small increments he’s able to move, taking him deeper with each. It’s just fingers, spreading him open and there is more to come. More he wants.

“Guero… do it.” He pulls back from the kiss and tangles his fingers into the other man’s hair, digging his fingernails into the meat of Faraday’s shoulder when the Gambler doesn’t react.

“Guero.”

He’s still waiting for an answer when Faraday buries his face against Vasquez neck, mumbling into his skin something that suspiciously sounds like an evasion, the beginning of “Why don’t we…”

There is something there, a hesitation that goes past insecurity but hell all if Vasquez deals with that now.

“I want you,” he cuts him off. “So take me, cábron. Unless you have a real problem, don’t use me as an excuse.”

Faraday’s fingers still to an easy caress inside of Vasquez and the gambler lifts his head with a forlorn expression.

“I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“You won’t, Joshua. I don’t care. I just want you.”

“I can use my mouth if you like?” His puppy eyes make Vasquez laugh.

“No!” A quick kiss. “I won’t last. Fuck me, Joshua.” He could say please but Faraday doesn’t look like he’s looking for “please”, he looks like he needs.. “Now!”

Faraday blinks and then he grins, a miraculous thing, like the sun breaking through clouds as whatever mood had him disperses like fog.

“Ah well...if you insist.” And immediately his daredevil nature takes over with a lewd roll of his hips, sliding their groins against each other. He chuckles at Vasquez’s moan like he had no care in the world. It covers the sudden emptiness when Faraday’s finger retreat, the cold whisper of doubt, instantly dispelled by the view of the warm spring sun dancing over the proud lines of Faraday’s body, the tin in hand again, now not caring at all for its cold, his right hand moving slowly up and down his errection, spread the salve generously over the flesh.

The sight alone, as he kneels there between Vasquez spread knees, is enough to make Vasquez cock jump. He wants to watch him like that, his hand sliding over the length of his cock, pulling back the foreskin in slow, tantalizing motions, eyes fixed on Vasquez’s face. Not just in preparation. Vasquez wants to see him drive himself to the brink, lose himself in the touch. Wants to see him come like this.

There suddenly isn’t enough air in the room when Faraday bends forward and guides Vasquez legs around his hips with careful hands, catching Vasquez’s lips in the same move.

“Hey,” he whispers and Vasquez strains upward to keep that connection a moment longer but then he is there, a blunt pressure against his ass and a breathless voice hovering so close.

“Let me do the work, darling. Just relax, relax.” Vasquez grabs the meat of Faraday’s arms and sinks back down, closing his eyes to let it happen. An unfathomable thought, giving up control like that. Unimaginable with the men he had met but Faraday? Joshua.

“I’m fine,” he whispers, against the strain in his voice, the pressure that mounts and shifts and then…

“Oh fuck, Vasquez.”

Small movements. An arm that curls under his knee and eases the strain on his side. And pressure, sliding deep, caressing over nerves set alight already, sliding deeper, hitting just that right spot that has the warmth bloom in him. Faraday so close above him, boxing him in with an arm and a lopey grin.

“Hey,” he whispers again. Vasquez grins back, shifting his hips into the movement.  
“Hola, cábron. You here more often?”

“If you want, señor. I might be.”

Vasquez laughs and finds himself lost in it when Faraday picks up the pace and drives the thoughts - more, later, again, maybe together - from his head and the need to lose himself higher and higher.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful like this,” Faraday groans and snaps his hips forward, a broad hand wrapping over Vasquez leaking cock. “Just lemme… lemme take care of you. Fuck, Vas. I need to…”

“Yes.” Do what you like. I trust you to do it. Both. Vasquez doesn’t care which when Faraday’s hips snap forward and his cock sends him soaring and forward into the warm palm that strokes him.

He won’t last long, he doesn’t want to. He just wants to lose himself in that, the feel of Faraday in him, his moans, his incoherent babbling and hand speeding up its movement, knowing exactly what he does.

“So beautiful, Vas. Let me see you. C’mon, darling. You like this?”

“Yes,” Vasquez whispers and throws back his head, his eyes screwed shut, carried on the sound of Faraday’s voice.

“Harder? Faster?”

“Yes!” Vasquez fingers grab his lover’s shoulder, dig into the skin, giving himself minimal leverage to follow Faraday’s movements, get closer to him, follow the flames to threaten to drown him if he doesn’t catch it right now. Right now.

“Faraday!”

“That’s it, darling. Vas, fucking hell, Vasquez!”

Hell is not what he would call Faraday calling his name when he comes, driving home again and again to take Vasquez with him and the white haze that drags him down until Faraday is all he feels.

Or the softness of the bed under him and the warmth of a Faraday shaped blanket that slowly drops onto him, askew like he wants to spare the injured side the pressure.

Good idea, Vasquez thinks as he feels the twinge of pain and the faint wetness of fresh blood. Not much, just… the sacrifice stupidity demands.

He feels the grin on his face bloom as he turns his head to the right and finds the happy idiot there, his head draped on Vasquez shoulder and grinning just as stupidly.

Cum is stickily cooling on Vasquez belly and dripping in places he really doesn’t want to think about.

“Alright?” Faraday asks and turns his head to drop a kiss on Vasquez’s shoulder.

“Not bad,” Vasquez says and laughs at the slap it earns him.

“See if I take care of you now, you cretin!” Faraday sniffs at the perceived slight and ruins the effect instantly by moving for the wash basin in the corner.

 

***

 

Faraday has to force himself to look away for long enough from the man on the bed to light a cigarette. Everybody would understand his troubles if they saw Vasquez like this, barely dressed in a thin blanket that he haphazardly threw over his hips, an arm pillowed behind his head as if he were trying to show off those muscles of his and the fine spread of black hair that dusted the chest of a fighter or hard worker on perfect accent to bronzed skin glowing with... something.

It takes Faraday two tries to light the damn thing before he hands it down and watches as Vasquez takes the first, hungry drag.

"Can I now check the wound?"

Vasquez grumbles in response and closes his eyes like a big, lazy and pretty fucked out cat. But at least he doesn't protest much anymore.

"I am not a helpless virgin, cábron, that you need to touch with silken gloves because she cut her finger."

"No," Faraday shoots back. "You got shot and almost froze to death."

"It's a graze, Joshua. I had worse. _You_ had much worse."

"It bled through the bandage. Just let me check on it. I hate the thought that I hurt you." The admission costs Faraday a slice of his pride but it's worth that bit when Vasquez visibly relents and smokes in silence, his wounded side no longer adamantly turned away from Faraday

“You’re not normally this squeamish, guero. Earlier as well.”

Vasquez’s  free hand gently tangles in Faraday’s hair, his gaze burning holes in the side of Faraday’s face instead of watching what he is doing with the bandage.

The wound looks a lot less bad than expected, some of the scabbing broke open between the tight stitches Billy had set, the stitches itself safely holding up. And yes, Faraday knew that. In no way could Vasquez have reacted as he did, so freely rising to the occasion and the pleasure, had he pulled stitches in the process. That pain would’ve registered.

Faraday tugs the bandage and cover back into place, retying it the second time in an hour. He’ll change it later, properly. After Vasquez rested a bit.

“I’m not squeamish, just... “ Faraday wrinkles his nose and sighs. There is no two ways around this talk. Chances are, it never will come up again with his own stupid worries alleviated for now. And yes, he knows that Vasquez can toughen out a lot, just like Faraday but there were things…

He crawls into the bed next to Vasquez and reaches for the blanket to tug it over both of them. “Wait, you’re alright with me staying, right?” 

As soon as the words leave his mouth Faraday would like to smack himself for being an idiot when Vasquez scowls stabs the cigarette in direction of Faraday’s face.

“If you try to leave, cábron, I will shoot you in the leg. Comprende?”

“Ok. Ok, just checking.” He licks his lips and slips under the blanket, just casually tangling a leg with Vasquez’s. It’s one of those things that lovers do that he has wanted to do for ages, sometimes does with the other two when they fall asleep after a generous bout of sex but that’s not the same as doing it with a man whose lips curl up like Vasquez’s do when he feels the touch. Like a secret. Their secret.

Faraday reaches out for good measure and links their fingers together, admiring the difference in their coloring like an especially well done painting. Not that he knows anything about those.

Aaand he stalling.

“So… what did the tattletales tell you about… any of this? Me?”

Vasquez’s frown deepens as he reaches over and holds the cigarette to Faraday’s lips to let him have a drag. “There were misconceptions? That is what Goodnight called it.”

“Misconceptions,” Faraday snorts around the blue smoke. “Yeah, you could say that…”

He rolls onto his back and tugs Vasquez closer by his hand until he rests comfortably with his head on Faraday’s shoulder.

The ceiling is pale wood, birch, Faraday thinks, and wholly unaccusing as Faraday begins to talk. And no he is not going to spare Goodnight and Billy by pulling details. Even with the lack of any anger from his side, it’s a matter of principle. Meddling god damned grandmas that the lot of them are.

 

“So… is he still alive?” Vasquez asks innocently from the spot on Faraday’s shoulder from where he had moved only once in the last fifteen or so minutes to stab out the cigarette.

Faraday doesn’t need to be a clairvoyant to know what his lover - hehe - is alluding to. Billy had asked the same question and, shortly after, Goodnight. Heck, Faraday himself had wondered at some point but come to the same conclusion over and over again.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. It was a long time ago. Heck, I don’t even know his name anymore or the town’s for that matter. It’s not like I could kill him even if I wanted to.”

Vasquez responds with a thoughtful hum and mild mannered words that set every alarm in Faraday alight. “Shame. I am a great friend of justice.”

Faraday laughs softly at that and squeezes Vasquez a little closer for being just who he is. “You already have a bounty. How about you try and not get yourself in more trouble instead. As I said, it was a long time ago and I was just as much at fault. Being stupid and all that jazz. I’d rather focus on making it good for you, instead.”

There is no immediate answer, just a doubtful eyebrow from Vasquez and the seconds ticking by before he relents. “You did, guero. You can do so again at any time. Any time.”

His lips twitch into a lascivious smirk that Faraday feels compelled to kiss off his face. “Forget it. You heal that fucking wound, you moron. Not tomorrow and not the day after.”

He laughs, remembering himself after Billy and Goody had been through with him that first time. “I can guarantee, you’ll be happy if you don’t have to move too much anyways.”

He doesn’t miss the way Vasquez’s eyes darken as he licks his lips, leaning closer carefully and with as little strain on his side as possible. “I do not need to move to use my mouth, cábron. That is a promise. Two days. We use them.”

Faraday has to swallow through his suddenly dry throat, before he releases a shuddering breath and grins. “If you’re a good boy and resting up nicely I might yet get to ride you.”

He bends his head in the most awkward angle possible and plants a kiss to Vasquez’s lips. “That is a promise, too.”

 

***

 

Nobody lies in bed the next time Sam Chisolm rides onto the farmstead. Barely.

They sit in the late afternoon sun on a pair of chairs. Two men with just enough time under their belts to wash off the stink of sex and fix their appearance enough to not resemble two men who just spent two days learning every inch of each other’s bodies in increasingly inventive ways. Inventive because Vasquez remains far from fit and not because they already have enough of the simple touch and fuck of first-time lovers.

On the contrary, not touching Vasquez proves nigh impossible. Faraday’s new favorite past time. Their bodies pressing into each other at the kitchen table. Vasquez curled into Faraday’s arms as he sleeps through his body’s mending of the damage with Faraday’s fingers slowly carding through his hair when he finds himself wide awake and unable to sleep anymore. No matter how much Vasquez keeps protesting, that bullet took a good chunk out of him and what had come after hadn’t helped.

If sleep is the price Faraday has to pay to watch Vasquez fall apart on his hands and tongue and dick the way he had the last days, Holy Mother of God, he’ll watch him sleep for weeks. God willing, they’ll have time to be awake together in the months to come.

Goodnight's laughter wafts over from the barn where he stands with Sam, all loose-limbed confidence and Louisiana charm. Billy is nowhere to be seen but given the absence of his and Goodnight’s horse, it’s not hard to deduce that he’s taking up more than his share of the physical work again.

“He looks good,” Vasquez comments around the coffee cup at his lips and glances over as if he had caught Faraday’s underhanded worry. Goodnight after Rose Creek felt different than Goodnight before, more solid, less bluster and barely holding seams, but the risk is always there that he falls apart just as he had, driven to the brinks by demons that wake him screaming some nights. It’s not hard to imagine why Sam had taken him with on such an easy mission where the absence of one man wouldn’t make a big difference. It’s easy to see how Sam smiles and draw the right conclusions.

Even easier to notice Vasquez’s curious gaze and smile.

“I can’t not worry, Vas. He’s still…” He doesn’t even get to explain but Vasquez cuts him off.

“I would think ill of you if you did, guero,” he says and curls his mouth into an easy smile. “We all worry and you have more right to it than most.”

Faraday wants to ask him why but instead he drops his hand and curls his pinky around the Mexican’s for a moment, protected from sight by their bodies and the silent agreement that they won’t advertise this - them - yet. No particular reason except the novelty of the truth and the beauty of having a secret between them.

It’s not like it will stay a secret forever, or even for long with some of them.

Billy strolls out of the barn, takes one look at them and raises his eyebrow in the shadow of his hat before he grins. Whatever he says to Goodnight, catches him a good-natured laugh as he moves up the overgrown path to the house.

“Evening, Billy. Looking a little a stiff there,” Faraday greets him, wiggling his booted feet on the railing in lieu of a wave.

“Are you offering to work it out of me?” Billy shoots back and climbs up the stairs with feet heavy enough that Faraday rolls out of his chair and Vasquez shoves it over in Billy’s direction.

“Shit, that was a joke. You alright?”

Billy ignores Faraday’s question and walks past him to drop into the chair with a low huff.

“Ey, hermano, you ok?” When Vasquez repeats the question, Billy shrugs and drags the hat off his head.

“Time idle and injuries don’t lend themselves well to knife work.” He makes a face and stretches. “Faraday’s right. I’m stiff. I will be fine.”

He looks in two pairs of doubting eyes and snorts, his right hand shooting out to the border of Vasquez's collar where the fabric just barely hides a still darkening bruise. “But look who is talking, my friend,” he says and chuckles.

“Take your fucking greedy hands off, Rocks. That’s mine!” Faraday bites out, all drama and no heat.

Billy’s chuckle turns into outright laughter and Faraday can’t help but grin.

Vasquez rolls his eyes at their antics and swats at Billy’s hand with little enthusiasm.

“A little stiff but I will be fine, not that it’s anybody’s business, cábron.”

“Not unless you allow it to be, you are right,” Billy agrees and easily drops his hand. 

Faraday watches with mild astonishment as the two men look at each other and Vasquez mouth curls into one of his more willful smiles.

“Ask me again after the wound healed, hermano, and this motherhen stops fussing.” He nods in Faraday’s direction though Billy already has his head tilted back and musters Faraday with something not unlike pride.

Which is all very awkward.

“You know, darling, if you wanna thank someone for that, just whip your arm roughly to your left. You won’t hit any wrong person. Worst motherhen in this whole sorry lot,” Faraday snorts but instead of getting on with the program and making it easy, just a little less awkward for all involved, Vasquez’s face does this thing where he goes all serious from one moment to the next and stares at Billy.

“Thank you,” he says, the words hanging heavily between them, and it looks like Vasquez might wanna make it worse and say more, but the others decide to come over at that moment and save Joshua from the embarrassment.

Billy nods once and smiles. “You’re welcome.”

Then he winks.


End file.
